The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 eBook

Drona, shooting mightier and More awful shafts.
Observant of Kshatriya duties, Arjuna then pierced
Drona in that battle with nine arrows. Cutting
the shafts of Arjuna by his own shafts, Drona then
pierced both Krishna and Arjuna with many shafts that
resembled poison or fire, Then, while Arjuna was thinking
of cutting of Drona’s bow with his arrows, the
latter, endued with great valour, fearlessly and quickly
cut off, with shafts the bow-string of the illustrious
Phalguna. And he also pierced Phalguna’s
steeds and standard and charioteer. And the heroic
Drona covered Phalguna himself with many arrows, smiling
the while. Meantime, stringing his large bow anew,
Partha, that foremost of all persons conversant with
arms, getting the better of his preceptor, quickly
shot six hundred arrows as if he had taken and shot
only one arrow. And once more he shot seven hundred
other arrows, and then a thousand arrows incapable
of being resisted, and ten thousand other arrows.
All these slew many warriors of Drona’s array.
Deeply pierced with those weapons by the mighty and
accomplished Partha, acquainted with all modes of
warfare, many men and steeds and elephants fell down
deprived of life. And car-warriors, afflicted
by those shafts, fell down from their foremost of
cars, deprived of horses and standards and destitute
of weapons and life. And elephants fell down like
summits of hills, or masses of clouds, or large houses,
loosened, dispersed, or burnt down by the thunder,
or by the wind, or fire. Struck with Arjuna’s
shafts, thousands of steeds fell down like swans on
the breast of Himavat, struck down by the force of
watery current. Like the Sun, that rises at the
end of the Yuga, drying up with his rays, vast quantities
of water, the son of Pandu, by his showers of weapons
and arrows, slew a vast number of car-warriors and
steeds and elephants and foot-soldiers. Then
like the clouds covering the sun, the Drona-cloud,
with its arrowy showers, covered the Pandava-sun,
whose rays in the shape of thick showers of arrows
were scorching in the battle the foremost ones among
the Kurus. And then the preceptor struck Dhananjaya
at the breast with a long shaft shot with great force
and capable of drinking the life-blood of every foe.
Then Arjuna, deprived of strength, shook in all his
limbs, like a hill during an earthquake. Soon,
however, regaining for fortitude, Vibhatsu pierced
Drona with many winged arrows. Then Drona struck
Vasudeva with five arrows. And he struck Arjuna
with three and seventy arrows, and his standard with
three. Then, O king, the valorous Drona getting
the better of his disciple, within the twinkling of
an eye made Arjuna invisible by means of his arrowy
showers. We then beheld the shafts of Bharadwaja’s
son falling in continuous lines, and his bow also
was seen to present the wonderful aspect of being incessantly
drawn to a circle. And those shafts, countless
in number, and winged with the Kanka feathers, shot
by Drona in that battle, incessantly fell, O king,